Storm Reverse Lid Combats Contamination in Cherwell

Cherwell District Council, like many Councils, have the usual on-going issues of dealing with contamination in recycling bins but the bigger challenge is with communal bin stores.

Cherwell Environmental Services – “We recently became aware of a new style 1100L recycling bin on the market and invited Storm to come and speak to us about them. Storm agreed to provide 2 x 1100L blue bins for us to trial.”

“Over several months, we trialled two new style bins, which are lockable and have a smaller, letter box opening for residents to put their recycling through. Some of the traditional larger bins that we have always used sometimes would contain larger items and/or big black sacks of mixed rubbish and recycling. The smaller openings immediately stopped this and also reduced some of the
non-recyclable items commonly placed in the recycling bins. With the artwork on the bins now being on the opposite side to where the bin is lifted and was clear and bold and much harder wearing than the self-adhesive labels we have always used on our bins, the information stays on the containers for longer.”

“The results were encouraging, with less contamination and although there was also less materials going into the recycling bin in general it was good quality recycling. This has saved us time and money as we don’t need to send out a separate vehicle to empty contaminated bins as much as we used to.”

“Following our trial, we, the Environmental Services department, decided to purchase more of these bins and have rolled them out to 22 different locations and found a 90% improvement in the reduction of contamination in the recycling bins in these areas.”